I’ve been a non-profit consultant for four and a half years now. It’s been a wonderful career choice for me and one of the reasons I enjoy it is the wide variety of projects that I get to work on.
Over the last few years, I’ve worked with organizations who’ve ranged from 2 staff all the way to 100+ staff members. The organizations vary in terms of the issue areas that they work on, though I will say that there’s a social justice undercurrent to many of my clients’ missions. That’s very values aligned for me and makes it easier for me to engage with the work the organization is doing.
The projects I tend to work on usually fall under strategy (which is typically a consulting and planning processes) and education (where I’ll custom design training for organizations). Today I thought I’d share a few examples of recent projects I’ve worked on.
Pacific Immigrant Resources Society – Communications Strategy and Planning
PIRS hired me to help them through a comprehensive communications planning process. While they’ve been around for over 40 years, they identified a need to improve the effectiveness and reach of their communications. They wanted to be “known” for certain things and have a stronger narrative out in the community. Over the course of about 3 months, I’ve conducted a communications audit, audience research and identification, messaging and narrative refresh, and created a comprehensive 12-month communications plan that will help them reach their desired goals.
Win Without War – Development Audit
WWW hired me this past summer to help them strategize the next steps to grow their fundraising program. They had experienced exponential email list growth early in 2017 and wanted to ensure that they are capitalizing on its fundraising potential. To identify ways to improve their fundraising program, I recommended a development audit to review what they have been doing, what’s working, what’s not working and the best opportunities. They came away from the process with a clear list of priorities for focus on and next steps.
Senior Medicare Patrol – Custom Webinars
SMP reached out to me in May to teach a two-part webinar series on storytelling to their member organizations through the US. Unlike many organizations that I work with, SMP is under the umbrella of a federal agency and typically does not engage in fundraising. They wanted to understand how to use storytelling to engage with potential beneficiaries, recruit volunteers, and inform people about their services. The first webinar was on the basics of storytelling and understanding how SMPs could use storytelling. The second webinar cover storytelling in greater detail and some practical applications of storytelling for SMPs.
Northern California Association of Nonprofits – A Session at Their Conference
NorCAN has their annual conference coming up in December 2017 and they’ve engaged me to develop a custom session on storytelling for their members. When I work with conference planning teams, we typically have a series of calls to discuss their audience, the context, and goals for the session. Since NorCAN’s members are working in less urban communities, this influenced how I approached the session. We also talked about the importance of storytelling for diversity and inclusion work. They identified this as something of importance to their members so it’s going to be a good portion of the conference session.
If you’d like to talk with me about a possible project, you can book a no-obligation consultation here.
